Archeologist Warlord: Book 2

by E. M. Hardy

Pain and torment boiled off them like heat from a burning sun made of suffering. There were no devils with pitchforks here, no instigators mocking or prodding them. Only the thousands upon thousands of souls he took into himself. Ethereal tendrils latched onto the tightly-packed ball of souls, siphoning the pain out beyond the center and out toward something off in the distance. Martin pondered this for a moment, then realized that the branching tendrils must be feeding the energy to his walkers. These tendrils were responsible for strengthening the walkers, augmenting their ceramic bodies with the pain of the tormented dead.

  This was the secret of the invaders, the secret that Mut and Amun didn’t quite understand yet nonetheless tinkered with. They sought to tap into this energy they called pnevma, harnessing it into something they could wield against their enemies. They wanted to find someone compatible with their technology, someone who could transform the anguish of souls into usable energy.

  No wonder the jinn viewed him with disgust and suspicion. No wonder the souls of the restless dead, the shayateen, hovered around his walkers, ready to claim the empty shells of those he took. No wonder the custodian of the Desert Ruins chose to destroy itself and all that it guarded instead of submitting to him.

  Martin would have no more of this.

  The euphoria of consuming souls turned to ash in his mouth, the memory of the joy nothing more than a lie. Martin always suspected something was off about his ability to consume the souls of the fallen, but this? Trapping souls for eternity, feeding off their pain and suffering? No, this was something else entirely. He may have blundered into this unknowingly, only seeing the gains from consuming souls. But now that he knew better, now that he knew what he was doing to the souls he possessed, he refused to let this go on.

  He would not allow himself to become a miniature ball of hell, a leech feeding off the agony of those he trapped within himself.

  Martin reached into himself—all twenty-six thousand extensions of himself—and poured their focus inward into his core. Each tendril turned around, plucking souls out of his core, and tried to pull them out to the world beyond himself. He felt resistance as he tugged at the souls, like pulling something heavy out of water. The souls moved quickly while within the core, but they seemed to stick once they reached the surface. A few of the tendrils pulled too hard, too quickly, and fractions of Martin’s core cracked.

  That, he felt—and disregarded. Martin ignored the sharp spike of pain, of emptiness within himself as the tendrils forced the souls out of his roiling core. He slowed down, gradually tugging the souls out of this core instead of suddenly pulling them through its surface. More cracks formed, and he gained the distinct sense that he was damaging himself. Between the thousands of minds that made up Martin Fuller, something whispered to him to stop, that he would destroy himself if he continued doing this.

  Martin didn’t care. He knew that if he permitted this, that if he allowed the euphoria to overtake him once more, he would become the exact same thing he swore to fight against. He would slowly descend into madness, seeing the people around him as nothing more than as meals to plunder. He would probably gain the power he needed to destroy the invaders, but what use would all that power be if he destroyed the very people he swore to protect it with?

  And so he persisted. The surface of his core cracked, pieces of its surface flaking off and burning in the heat of his focus, but he refused to give up. His tendrils continued reaching into himself, kept trying to pull out souls that he couldn’t pull out of himself. He wanted to release the souls, to grant them their freedom and end their misery.

  He couldn’t.

  Tried as he might, he simply couldn’t tug the trapped souls out of himself. He nearly ripped his core apart in a desperate frenzy, and he would have cried hot tears of frustration if he could. Yet, nothing worked. The souls were imprisoned in a man-made hell, and there was nothing that Martin could do about it without destroying himself.

  Hell. The thought suddenly came at him. What was hell for? Why were the souls of the damned sent to hell in the first place? What did the very concept of hell and the many iterations of hell-like existences serve in the first place? Were these hells merely to inflict suffering upon those trapped within, or did they serve a higher purpose?

  Martin ceased trying to pull the souls out of his core, and he ignored their renewed wails of despair as they realized they would continue to be trapped within the hell that was his core. He tried another approach.

  Martin focused once more into himself. His tens of thousands of minds coalesced around his core, emptying all thoughts while doing so. He defined his core, and his core defined him. He may not be able or willing to destroy himself, but he could redefine himself. He recalled the mandala that Venkati brought him, of how it would always bring his gaze back to the center. He stilled himself, re-examined himself, and brought his full attention upon himself.

  He found his center, and began reshaping it.

  The damned locked within him continued wailing, screaming out their suffering. This suffering defined their existence, defined their everything, as their cruel prison siphoned their sorrow for whatever purpose it needed.

  And then the pain stopped.

  It winked out suddenly, like shutting off a light bulb. The souls cried out in relief, some breaking down in sobs as the torment finally ended. The chaos of their prison disappeared next. What was once a boiling mass of shapeless blobs crashing into one another in a shared cauldron of pain and suffering transformed into a void emptied of sight and sound. The souls welcomed the blank abyss of nothingness, enjoyed the peace and quiet with muffled moans and cries.

  Soon enough, a glowing pattern emerged in the darkness. The souls fled from the pattern in panic, afraid that it heralded a new kind of suffering. They flitted away from it as fast as they could until they eventually encountered the walls of their abyss, cementing the fact that they were still trapped in whatever hell they found themselves in.

  The pattern continued floating in the center, still glowing in the dark. The souls eventually overcame their fear, with some of the braver ones hesitantly approaching the pattern. It soon became clear that the pattern was indeed harmless, that no new suffering befell those that came close to it. The rest of the souls gathered around the pattern, studying it with intensity. One of the souls materialized, forming into the shape of a young woman—a martial artist. She approached the pattern, traced it with her eyes and remembered.

  She remembered a pyramid surrounded by faceless clay men, of joining General Shen Feng’s garrison, then playing with the little dolls that toddled all around the pyramid. She remembered the sudden order to attack, of how easy it was to flit between the clay men and then cut them to ribbons with her chi-enhanced capabilities. She remembered the ambush, then the end as spears pierced her body. She recoiled at the memory, horrified by the endless suffering that came next.

  “I am sorry,” whispered a voice. She whipped her head around, trying to find the source, but found nothing more than the darkness of the abyss. She turned around and studied the pattern once more. The way the pattern kept drawing her attention back to the center reminded her of the cultivation techniques she used to bolster her reserves of chi. So she sat down, continued following the pattern as it guided her toward finding her center.

  She didn’t even notice her human form disappearing, her soul turning back into a shapeless blob. All her sins, all her fears and transgressions melted away. All that remained was a sphere of bright light, pure and new once more. This scene repeated itself across the thousands of souls stored within Martin’s core—even to the blood-stained souls of the Shogunates who had sacrificed thousands of innocents for their own benefits.

  But it didn’t end just there. Martin opened up his focus outward, reaching out everywhere he could. The screaming souls of the dead, those seething to inflict the same pains inflicted upon them at their moments of death—he reached out to them across the Visible and Invisible Worlds. He i
nvited the swarm of shayateen hovering around his walkers, waiting for a chance to inhabit a soul-drained husk to lash out against the living. The shayateen cursed him, spitting all sorts of invectives at him, and raked his core with their fury for denying them their vengeance upon the living.

  Martin took all their hatred, their desire for retribution, and poured it into his core.

  The shayateen couldn’t resist him. They came at him in their endless numbers, rushing into the void of suffering that filled his core. Martin guided them all, one by one, and brought them before the mandala in his core. The shayateen exhausted themselves in the endless cycles of the mandala, their rage and anger oscillating endlessly into the center of the pattern. Soon enough, the roaring rage of the shayateen quieted down into cries of pain, before turning into whimpering sobs of relief as the anger finally bled away from their tortured souls.

  But there was one soul in particular that refused to yield. It was the soul of a young, arrogant knight from a world far, far away. One that was so eager to empower himself, to feed upon the souls of this world, that he rushed headlong into his death. It was the soul of this knight, a fresh inductee into the Order of Riders, that had formed the foundations of Martin’s pnevmatic core. Thousands of years of study by the Custodians, thousands of years trapped in anguish had reduced the soul to mere fragments of its former self. And yet those fragments steadily reformed themselves as Martin began consuming souls in great masses. The memories of the young man bubbled up, his desire for vengeance and pain reviving with him.

  The knight tore at his restraints, spat at the mandala before him. He cursed Martin and his kind, swearing to reave everything that he knew and loved. All he needed was one more moment of weakness, of selfish desire, and he would take over once again. He had nearly won his freedom, his release, after stealing power from the souls rushing into his prison. One more release like that, one more reaping of souls, and he would have enough power to overwhelm the mockery of life that held him for countless eons. Once free, he would draw up as much power as he could from the cattle in this world. He would await the inevitable arrival of his people, ready to serve and die in their unending battles against their rivals. He would rejoin the great cycle of war, to purge the home worlds of his enemies just as they purged his.

  Martin understood none of the knight’s motivations though, for the knight could no longer speak nor share information. His soul was reduced to a single point of condensed rage and anger, desiring only to lash out. Martin wrapped the soul within the tendrils of his core, further restraining the soul as he focused into the mandala. The knight resisted, unwilling to leave without a fight, but he eventually found himself unable to turn his gaze away from the peaceful allure of the pattern. His sight rested upon the ceaseless spirals, whorls, and swirls that brought his focus back to the center, again and again until his rage eventually burned itself out.

  The mandala drew all impurities out, leaving only the pure essence of the innocent and the guilty alike. The endless pattern served its purpose of guiding the souls, helping them find peace once more after all the pain and suffering inflicted upon them. It didn’t matter if the souls were reaped by Martin from the living or if the souls came to him after floating aimlessly, endlessly, in the world. Innocence was all that remained—a pure, unadulterated state of being that released the souls from the shackles of hate and desire that bound them to the mortal realm.

  All this was made possible through the focus of Martin’s myriad selves, through the power he already siphoned from the souls, and through the core that he reshaped according to his will. He redefined his existence, pushed and pulled the pnevma that shaped his core until he was satisfied with the outcome. This change exhausted him, drained most of the strength he accumulated from taking the souls.

  But it was all worth it, especially when he willed the mandala to unlock itself. Its pattern shifted to become a gateway, a portal for the souls to find their way back into the world, into a cycle of life where they belonged. Martin’s core no longer resembled a hellish prison, an unholy engine fueled by the tortured souls trapped within. There were no more anguished screams begging for release, no more cries of pain and despair. Neither was he surrounded by roaring shayateen just waiting for the chance to inflict the suffering they endured upon the living.

  Just silence. Blissful, peaceful silence—and the absence of power gained from the tortured souls. Martin knew nothing in life was free, and that his decision to release the souls meant giving up whatever benefits came with doing so. Still, he believed that this was a price he didn’t mind paying.

  He only hoped that he wouldn’t regret his decision later on.

  Chapter 16

  “What?” Isin groaned, shifting in the saddle of her camel in an attempt to rub some of the pain away from her thighs.

  Martin’s walker slowed down, trotting alongside Isin’s mount as they trekked through the paved roads of the Bashri Desert. “I just got word from your contacts in Ma’an. They have a shipment of crystals ready for transport, and I’m just about to leave the payment with a certain Arafaz. Do you know him?”

  Isin furrowed her brows, thinking about the name. “Rahman? Rahman Arafaz?”

  “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “You can leave the payment with him. A wagon of gold ore for three wagons of this mystery crystal of yours, yes?”

  “Yup,” Martin replied. “Alright then. He’s confirming the receipt. Thanks again for your help, Isin! I appreciate it so much!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled, waving off the walker in annoyance as it marched back to its position on the caravan’s flanks.

  This was the last leg of Prince Suhaib’s journey, returning from the emirate of Naim. No more hole-in-the-mud cities, no more tromping through the oppressive sun, no more wayward executives and operatives to bribe or kill. Her mission would finally be over with once she brought Suhaib safely back to Ma’an.

  Now if only Martin would stop being so damned chipper all the time. She hated how fresh and happy he seemed as of late. She almost missed the time when his walkers just marched mechanically along, barely saying a word. By Jahannam, even the stupid jinn started playing nice with him! It was like he had dunked his walkers in some sort of aphrodisiac, the way those idiots from the Invisible World kept pestering him and his stupid walkers. One day they’re shunning him, calling him a corrupter. The next, they’re all buddy-buddy and asking how he managed to find purification. Now the jinn obsessed over these strange shapes and patterns that Martin kept drawing up.

  Truth be told, however, Isin was just secretly peeved that she couldn’t understand what was going on. She was adept at comprehending intrigue and uncovering mundane plots. But the arcane? This was something that the senior executive never had a talent for. The only information she gathered was that Martin managed to purify something, and that the normally hostile jinni had begun befriending him.

  She could perhaps try drawing up a contract, see what kind of jinn would respond to her. Maybe one would answer her call for a bonding this time, get lucky like that Imperial girl, Yao Xiu. Or maybe not, and she would face disappointment yet again.

  “Later,” she mumbled to herself, as she spotted the walls of al-Taheri, the capital of the Ma’an Emirate, off in the distance. “First, I hand in my reports to the couriers, then I’m going to take a long, hot bath until I turn into a prune. Maybe then I’ll have the courage to try a summoning ritual… or at least get to the bottom of whatever’s going on with Martin and the jinn.”

  ***

  Isin lounged about in her hotel room, luxuriating in the tub of now-warm water as she held a glass of chilled wine in one hand and a sheet of paper in the other. She sipped the expensive vintage as she read through the report.

  Information came from a network of League operatives sending innocuous messages through Martin’s post offices. Letters from lovers and traders and family members, all containing nuggets of information that made little sense
on their own. Match the letters with a cipher, however, and you have information coming in from every emirate in the Bashri and every major city in the Empire.

  That very same information was what caused the Senior Executive to spit out a spray of fine vintage, barely pushing the sheet of paper out of her face in time.

  “No, that can’t be right,” she said, as she set both chalice and report aside before pulling herself out of the tub. She quickly gulped down a glass of water, cutting off the pleasant buzz with plenty of fluids to bring her back up to speed. She stared furiously down on the report even as she toweled herself off, her brows furrowed with worry. She ignored the bits about the Balancers and Rats running interference. They were amateurs compared to League operatives. What use was this chi and fancy magics of theirs if they couldn’t even find what they were looking for? She already knew what the khans and the Shogunates were up to, thanks to her alliance with Martin.

  Yet, it was the report about Martin’s battle with the Shogunates that really unsettled her.

  An estimated fifty thousand soldiers cut in half by a force less than a third its size. Two thousand supposedly-elite warriors called samurai, beaten down to just a hundred or so. This kind of military achievement wasn’t unheard of—smaller armies regularly repelled larger ones, given the right circumstances—but it was the way Martin fought that knocked Isin off-balance.

  “Cutting down their elites like wheat, growing increasingly unstable as the fighting progressed, actually laughing while fighting?” She kept on reading the report, trying to wrap her head around its implications. “He was slaughtering the Shogunates in the last battle. He could have won if he simply kept on pressing the attack. Then he suddenly gives up the fight just like that? What in sun and sand is all this about?”

  She knew something was afoot during their long circuit of the emirates around the Bashri. Martin’s walkers had been all lethargic and barely responsive, but the timing couldn’t have been a coincidence. The walkers started becoming less responsive about two weeks ago, and only seemed to get worse as time passed by. That episode where they missed a step, fell out of formation? That was just a few days ago. And then Martin’s abrupt return to normalcy? His good cheer? That came the same day they entered al-Taheri.